Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Wiersema, for being here.
Let me say on the record from those of us on this side of the table—we are a few more than when you used to come to report to us when I was here last time—that we thank you for all your hard work over the past almost 34 years. Indeed, with you as the interim Auditor General this past while, we've had a great experience. It has been a great joy to be in this committee while you've been here reporting and a great pleasure. I certainly appreciate that. I know that the New Democrats on this side of the committee appreciate all your hard work.
Let me talk a little bit about AgriStability, because it was referenced earlier. You talked about this idea of this holistic program, a shared program with the provinces, provided of course, that the provinces—which I believe we talk about in the report—build a business case on how they intend to implement it, in which case the department then approves it. That's all well and good. That's a good thing.
That would imply to me at least the service standard delivery they expect in that business case, yet your report indicates—and I'm referencing paragraph 3.42 on page 15—a 75-day standard where we're actually trying to make payments, and it talks about processed and unprocessed applications. In other words, the report says that for the processed applications, 23% were processed and approved and met the 75-day standard. I'm quoting from the report: “However, when unprocessed applications already beyond the 75-day standard were included, only 11 percent met the 75-day service standard”.
So it seems to me there's a long way to go to come close to the standard if only 11%—and this was the most recent report, I believe, from the year 2009. It seems to me they have a long way to go to actually meet the standard where folks who are waiting for the cheque—the bankable piece is the hard part to figure out anyway—at least are getting it within a 75-day standard. There’s a long way to go if 11% are clearly meeting the standard and the rest are not.